The Energy was Running Live in Lisbon!

There were so many wonderful experiences at this year’s International SAP Conference for Utilities and Oil & Gas and I think those who joined us fell in love with the beautiful city of Lisbon – the smell of good food, networking with friends, the mosaic architecture, the music of the language and the soul of Portugal!

There were over 1100 attendees representing 282 companies from 60 countries at this year’s event making it one of the largest industry focused SAP conferences in 2017. It was an amazing morning as I welcomed the packed auditorium on the first day of the conference.

EDP was the most gracious host and our close business partner at this year’s event, providing great keynotes, insights into the future of Energy and a wonderful welcome reception at one of EDP’s first power plant facilities – now transformed into a beautiful museum and fantastic social center.

This year’s theme was all about “unlocking the Innovator” to seize the opportunities in the Digital Economy; understanding how SAP’s S/4HANA can help unlock the potential with the SAP Transformation Navagator, exploring opportunities with cloud delivery models, introducing SAP Leonardo for IoT innovations and hearing more about Machine Learning and Blockchain.

Peter Maier opened the keynotes with a view into what Gartner calls the “bimodal” IT model of optimizing the stable Digital Core while expanding into the Edge Solutions that deliver quick agility and fast growth. More than 40 customers presented their success stories on agility and growth on digital transformation including Antonio Martins da Costa, Executive Board Member from EDP, who talked about the importance of the digital business and the value of cloud computing.

Peter Maier, GM of SAP Energy & Natural Resources	Antonio Martins da Costa, EDP Executive Board

All the workshops were sold out and micro-forums were standing room only which validated the level of interest in learning about how SAP can help Utilities and Energy companies run live in real, real time!

For those of you who attended and shared your stories, I want to personally thank you for being a customer and partner of SAP and taking the time out of your busy schedule to help make this conference one of the best!

I hope to see everyone later this year at the SAP for Utilities conference in Huntington Beach, California on September 10-12.

Thank you!

Henry